A Home Printer That’ll Knock Your Socks Off

There are printers out there, and then there are printers. And the Epson Artisan 1430 is a printer. You can tell the difference immediately – it’s about 24″ inches wide, as opposed to the standard 15″. And forget that measly 8 1/2″x 11″ paper – this printer can handle up to 13″x 19″ (borderless printing, by the way)! The best part is that even with larger capacity printing you don’t lose any quality. In fact, this printer delivers bright, high-definition printouts that you almost can’t believe were printed from a home printer. It still fit just fine on our desk, too:

As designers, this printer opens up a whole new scope for Brian and me; we can now print full-size posters and a broader range of sizes for clients. As parents, we love that we can print photos of the boys without having to go somewhere (and I’m sure the grandparents will love this too, as they’ll be receiving some of the photos!).

And guess what, scrapbookers? This printer can handle 12″x 12″ pages, which means you can easily print out your digital scrapbook pages, or can print your own patterns for backgrounds in your scrapbooks – the possibilities are endless. The printer comes with a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements, too, giving you quality software to create designs and edit images.

It looks almost like it’s a regular-sized page, but the paper in this photo above is a 12″ x 12″ scrapbook page!

See how it compares to an 8 1/2″x 11″ page?

This printer handles large pages with ease, but it can also print traditional 4″x 6″ photos, eliminating the need for a separate photo printer and making it so simple to share photos with friends and family. But there’s even more beyond that – the printer comes with a tray that allows you to print directly on to CDs and DVDs (those meant for printing). The broad capabilities of this printer make it truly the one printer someone would need.

You know how most printers have four cartridges? Not this printer. No, it uses 6-color Claria Hi-Definition Ink, which provides amazing richness, depth and clarity. You get more color variation in your prints than you do with standard photos, giving you professional-grade results that you can be proud to display.

Oh, and after all of the things I’ve already mentioned, there’s still something else I forgot to share: this printer is wi-fi friendly. That means it’s incredibly easy to print wirelessly from your computer, smartphone or tablet without sacrificing speed or quality. I know I take a ton of photos with my phone; now it’s SO easy to print those out (which I had been really bad about doing before). The controls on the printer are incredibly easy and intuitive to use.

I’d definitely give this printer 5 stars, and it is a printer I’d recommend to friends and family (and in fact, I already have told a scrapbooking friend about how much she’d love it). The only “negative” I could see is the larger footprint, but the area it takes up is worth it for the large printouts you’re able to produce. The printer retails for $275-$300 depending on where you purchase it, and I believe the price is truly justified by all it provides. The print cartridges are reasonably priced as well – you can find them for around $20 each, or can get a bundle of all six on Amazon for $86.99.

The Epson Artisan 1430 is available on Epson.com, Amazon and several other online retailers.

Note: We received the Artisan 1430, ink cartridges and sample paper to facilitate our review. I was not compensated monetarily for this post. All opinions in this post are honest and are my own.

Hi! I'm Christi, the blogger here at Frugal Novice. I'm a Texan, born and raised, and I'm married to my high school sweetheart, Brian. I love baking, cooking, reading, DIY-ing, and spending time with my three great kids, who are 8, 6, & 3.

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We may be looking at a printer purchase in the next year or so, and this sounds like it fits a couple of weirdly specific tasks I’ve thought would be nice to have in an affordable printer. Thanks a ton for the info!